Top 10 Easy Summer Diet & Exercise Tips

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You spent all winter and spring working on your summer beach body, but once the weather starts to heat up, you stop your “get-hot-for-summer” attitude and replace it with “it’s-too-hot-this-summer” attitude.

Get back on track with our Top Ten Easy Summer Diet And Exercise Tips. They will help you cool down, get fit, and keep your body shapely year round.

10. Warm Lemon Water

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It might seem counter-intuitive to drink warm water on a warm day, but starting your mornings off with heated-up lemon water is a great way to clear up toxins from the body, regulate the digestive system, alkalize the blood, and give your skin a healthy glow.

In the hot, damp summers when extra pollutants in the body can be doubly felt, eliminating those in any way will help with slow, sustained weight loss plans.

9. Gentle Yoga

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When it’s over 90 degrees outside, the last thing you might want to do is exercise.

Incorporating a gentle yoga routine into your daily life will keep your limber, squeeze out the toxins through proven age-old movements, heal injuries, bring you inner peace, activate your natural cooling system, and act as a supplement for the cardio you can’t fathom when the sun is scorching hot.

8. Ginger Tea

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Ginger is a cure-all that is used by herbalists all over the world. Ginger can simultaneously “warm” up the metabolism while also reducing “heat,” inflammation, dizziness, and stimulating the digestion.

If you feel sapped by the midday sun, a great way of calming your nerves while getting a jolt of energy is to drink warm ginger tea with a bit of honey and some lemon.

7. Swimming

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When the weather is burning hot, going swimming sounds like a delightful leisurely activity to cool down. Well, swimming is also a great supplement for your regular winter exercise routine. Not only is it cooling, but when you swim laps, you get a full-body exercise with no resistance.

This is especially important for those with joint problems or injuries as hot weather is known to cause inflammation. Swimming will help this and is, generally, a fabulous exercise all year round.

6. Energy Soup

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If coming home to a hot apartment, turning on your stoves, and making yourself a healthy meal sounds like your own personal version of Hell, one great solution is blending up a batch of “Energy Soup.” You can find recipes for energy soup all over the internet, but the general idea is like a super healthy gazpacho.

One we like to make consists of an avocado, a peeled cucumber, spinach, kale, coconut water, and any other miscellaneous veggies lying around in the fridge. Throw it in a blender, add spices to taste, chill for an hour, and eat your daily dose of veggies in one delicious bowl. Make this ahead of time for a few nights and you don’t even have to worry about chopping and blending for a couple of days.

5. Cucumber

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Speaking of cucumber in energy soup, cucumber is a very cooling fruit which has an anti-inflammatory effect on the body; this is one reason why women use it on their eyes to reduce puffiness.

Cucumber is 90% water and adding cucumber as a “filler” in a salad or for taste in a glass of ice water purifies and cools the body from the inside out while giving you radiant skin from high water content and ascorbic acid aka Vitamin C.

4. Cherry Juice

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Cherry juice sans sugar is a miracle elixir for hardcore athletes and the arthritis prone alike. Cherries are in season during the summer, so picking fresh cherries and juicing them will do wonders for your body and be a great season treat.

Tart cherries are full of antioxidants, anthocyanins (which promote circulation), and in a 2006 study, were proven to have immense anti-inflammatory attributes that helped against muscle and joint damage.

In the hot summer months where one is prone to overextend from warmth, protecting your joints and muscles is important if you want to be physically fit enough to continue your weight loss process.

3. Pilates

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Similarly to yoga, pilates is a great exercise for warm weather, because while it burns lots of fat from muscle-building, it’s an evenly paced exercise where you can stop and relax if you are prone to overheating. Pilates was also designed for to help heal injured athletes, so if your form is right, you are less inclined towards injury.

As a newly-turned devotee to pilates, I can personally attest that, while the exercises are hard and generally work your whole entire body, they make you feel tight, strong, and graceful.

2. Raw salmon

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Full of skin-lubricating, brain-boosting oils and omega 3’s, salmon is a great summer food because it’s proven to support joint cartilage, regulate insulin, and control digestive tract inflammation.

If you can’t stand the idea of uncooked fish, you don’t have to eat it raw to get these effects, but combined with some cucumber, cooling avocado, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a ginger dressing, a raw sashimi salad is the perfect summer super food.

1. Coconut Water

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Coconut water is nature’s sports energy drink. This special water that lives inside the coconut (not to be confused with fatty coconut milk) is full of electrolytes and potassium, low in carbs, mostly fat-free, low in sugar, and a great way to begin and end a grueling, sweat-inducing workout.

If you have trouble losing weight because of thyroid problems, drinking coconut water has actually been proven to support the thyroid.